Hudud not a Pakatan Rakyat policy

KUALA TERENGGANU, 11 JAN 2009:  Pakatan Rakyat leaders moved to quell the subject of hudud law implementation which they claimed had been manufactured by Barisan Nasional (BN) as a by-election campaign issue.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang held a joint press conference to admit that though they had different stands on the matter, hudud implementation was not a Pakatan Rakyat policy because all three parties in the coalition — DAP, PAS and Parti Keadilan Nasional (PKR) — had not come to an agreement.

“Nothing becomes a policy of Pakatan Rakyat until it is discussed and agreed to by all the three parties. If we can’t agree, we won’t implement. We don’t deny our different stands on hudud but until we come to an agreement, it will not be implemented,” Lim said today at the Kuala Terengganu PAS headquarters.

Lim (© Roman888, source: Wikipedia) Lim, who is also the Penang Chief Minister, arrived in the constituency today to help with the opposition’s campaign in the parliamentary by-election. Polling is on 17 Jan. The by-election is a three-corner fight between the BN’s Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, PAS’s Abdul Wahid Endut, and independent Azharudin Mamat @ Adam.

The BN campaign, especially by its component party MCA, has been warning Chinese Malaysian voters against supporting PAS because of the party’s stand that it would implement hudud should it come to power.

Meanwhile Umno, the leading component party in the BN, has accused PAS of wavering on Islam for its political cooperation with DAP.

At the press conference, Abdul Hadi said the Chinese Malaysians of Terengganu had “already accepted hudud” because the law had been passed and gazetted when PAS controlled the state government from 1999 to 2004. The law has never been enforced.

Terengganu PAS commissioner Datuk Mustafa Ali, who was also present, said hudud was a non-issue in this by-election because PAS would not gain control of either the state government or of parliament.

“This by-election does not change the fact that the BN still controls the state and Parliament. Even if our candidate wins, it will not be possible to implement hudud because we don’t have the majority,” Mustafa said.

The hudud scare came about after PAS vice-president Datuk Husam Musa said hudud would be implemented if the Pakatan Rakyat had taken over the federal government, during a debate with Rembau Member of Parliament Khairy Jamaluddin at a forum on 20 Dec 2008.

Since then, the DAP has openly taken issue with PAS, while PKR has sat on the fence by saying that it will not reject hudud and that the law would not affect non-Muslims.